The RIT Physics Faculty webpage was updated recently to include the information of the recent faculty hires, 2 lecturers and 2 tenure track. And among those is an entry for me. It’s been a long journey for that entry to appear. And by no means is it time to relax and take a long vacation. But wow... there it is.

I’ll be teaching my first class next quarter, a section of University Physics I. Then in the spring quarter I get to teach Experiments in Modern Physics. That has to be the single most fun course I’ve ever gotten to be a part of (as a graduate student, and even as an undergraduate TA). Had I paid enough attention while I was having so much fun in that class as an undergraduate I might have had a more direct route through graduate school than my tour of high energy theory.

In the mean time I’m still setting up my lab, adjusting to my new responsibilities, trying to get some students started, and finishing some of my own work too.

The undergraduate physics program at RIT is quite unique and strong.

Aside from the normal fare of undergraduate physics, 3 things in particular stand out in my mind.

• All the introductory physics courses are taught in a workshop format with limited enrollments and lots of interaction.
• At the end of their 2nd year, physics majors take their “Core” exams. These are oral exams before faculty members that must be passed in order to continue. Most schools do not have such things until graduate school.
• During the 3rd and 4th year the students must complete a “Capstone” thesis. In addition to doing the work and writing it up (often being original research), it requires the students to give 3 independent presentations regarding the work. One is shortly after beginning to frame the thesis project, the next is at a mid point during their 4th year, and the last is upon completion of the capstone thesis. The capstone is also not optional.

In fact, we just had our 2nd round of the capstone talks today. I’ve been serving on the capstone committee (my first faculty committee assignment) and it was quite fun to see the students give their talks. Some were still kind of rough, but some of the talks were extremely impressive, they could easily be giving their general exam in graduate school (often a middle exam during a PhD).

Faculty members (and the audience in general) are allowed to ask questions and they do. As a member of the committee I tried to ask at least one question of each speaker to help frame each talk in my head. I tried to ask what I thought would be good, but fair questions. And if there was a hiccup, my aim was to not crucify anyone while trying to keep them honest. I don’t want the image of a petulant, little man...

Anyways, I was very impressed by the entire thing. It was a grand day to be in the physics department.

We had another good point today in the lab. One of the computers arrived earlier in the week and I installed linux in preparation for use. We got the proprietary software, SPEC by Certif, to control the diffractometer over the weekend. It’s the same software package I saw at Argonne and to a lesser extent in graduate school (though we didn’t need it for the SAXS-speckle experiments).

I am thankful for that experience as having to learn it at this point would require a major undertaking. Granted I’m still “learning” it, but I’m more or less able to function on my own. That goes double for having spent so much time learning linux in graduate school. Anyways, the software compiled and installed with not even a hiccup.

But we did much better. I managed to hook up a couple of motors to the controller/driver electronics, a couple of old MCU-2 racks from Advanced Control Systems. I can control the motors manually direct from the front panels, but the fun thing was to get those communicating with the linux box running SPEC. Now I can control the motors straight from the computer. From here I can control the number of steps/sec, the number of steps/degree, etc... and drive the motors to arbitrary positions.



A very large part of a diffractometer comes down to being able to control the motors with a high degree of precision and reproducibility, and all of it with a computer. So in essence, we’ve demonstrated this as a solved problem and it’s just a matter of repeating that solution in a few forms.

The MCU-2 units are sort of the “backup/extras”. For the primary 4-8 motors I’ve already purchased a nice set of modular step-pak controllers. That should give me a total of 12 controllable axes from the computer. That sure beats standing around inside a hutch turning a dial!

Progress today.

The electrician has begun installing the power cables, outlets, breakers, and conduits in the lab. The lab space itself is generous, but it was obvious from the first day that we’d have to make some significant expenditures to install some basic upgrades to make it a research lab. Electrical wiring was one of the biggies.

We need a primary power source for the x-ray generator. The unit we’re starting with is a 220V-50Amp, but single phase. However, we’re planning to upgrade at some point so we’ve done the wiring for a full 3 phases s the additional cost was marginal and right now it’s easy to install. We also had additional 220 single and 3 phase outlets, plenty of GFICs, and an emergency kill switch right by the front door.

Well, it is almost complete. The fish have almost all arrived, and the tanks are more or less set up.

Those of you that know us well, have no doubt met or at least heard tales of our beloved little pets. Making a move “with fish” has been a strange experience. But as with anything that you love, and feel you have some responsibility to care for, it becomes a process that must be endured.

We are now approaching the end stage of that process. Both of the NY tanks are set up (more or less). There’s still some arranging of the cables to tidy things up, but otherwise they’re set. There is also one more shipment of some salt-water fish remaining. But their tank ready and has about half of its denizens (and all of its rock).

This requires several things... One is having fish tanks in two locations since the process of physically moving everything at once was orders of magnitude beyond what was possible. That also requires someone to care for the fish in the other location. In short, we moved our smaller tanks that were empty and then set them up once we got to NY. I was surprised, but just by keeping some of the rocks and wood from the old tanks, even after a week of being “dry” was still able to quickly “cycle” the tank with bacteria. For the salt-water tank we just purchased a bag of sand and 5kg of live rock locally.

Once we were satisfied things were stable here, we had out contact in IL begin shipping the fish. This also is no easy task. But he is well compensated. The fish are feed little to no food for a few days prior to shipping, then caught and bagged. The bags are filled with O2, the temperature lowered just a little, and packed in styrofoam containers. Less than a day later they arrive after a short plane trip and some waiting. I’ve been rather surprised by how well this has worked (even for some fish I feared would not make such an ordeal easily).

I suppose it really isn’t that far fetched. It’s a similar process by which fish are distributed to aquarium stores. Probably the hardest part is finding a person that is legally allowed to ship cargo with oxygen.

Another aspect that was surprising was the cost. While it’s not cheap or inexpensive, it has been much less than just buying things here. This is particularly true for the salt-water rock. Comparing what we could sell it for in one place and then buy replacement rock here was much more expensive than shipping it.

Having a little “capital” to spend on this was also key. While we do get some of the money back from selling things in one location, it has been necessary to absorb a significant cost, only some of it which will come back to us. It could be possible to recoup a little more, but we’re just not able to do that ourselves right now. And again, having pets requires expenditures other than just food. Chalk this up to “vet bills” or something similar.

We are down to 2 large tanks (which is more than plenty). 1 for our loaches and 1 for our salt-water fish.

Anyhow, the process continues, but is almost done. I should post pictures before too long.